


The Good That Won't Come Out

by destronomics



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-25
Updated: 2009-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 17:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destronomics/pseuds/destronomics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione knows how to learn, but what do they do with her after they've taught her how to win a war?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Good That Won't Come Out

She still sees them sometimes, not counting all the times she sees them in the paper or in the dust covers of the books that they write; they don't want to see her, but sometimes she sees them, across a street or when she might accidentally bump into them in a café. Not everyone got to write books about the war, only a few had the ability to capture it well anyway, and out of that, only a few survived to get their words in print. Some of the doomed managed to get it down with hurried letters home, others died after the war in drink and curses. Some say they were self-inflicted, but for Hermione they were just more casualties.

She knew a lot about casualties, about the cost of war. Ron always said that he thought she would be a mediwitch when the time finally rolled around if he hadn't known that it would come too early for any of them to be trained for anything they were actually good at. So Hermione became an Unspeakable and Ron and Harry and Neville and Luna and Ginny didn't really speak to her for a long while after that. Maybe they were all scared of what she could become.

Maybe, Hermione thought, they were all cowards.

Harry had done what he did second best, and that was cursing -no one wanted to watch Quidditch when their relatives were being twisted and broken in the sky above. His third best thing was just making it through the day as his namesake gifted him with. No one commended him for that -out of jealousy or anger (but really, weren't they the same?) she didn't ask and Harry never offered.

Well, she couldn't ask him because he didn't return her inquiries and like with Ron, she soon gave up. She had better things to do than mend old childhood friendships, like the war she had to win. Of course no one told her that was exactly what she was doing, but she wasn't the cleverest witch this generation had just because most of the other ones had died in the first wave. She could figure out what it took to win a war, what _she_ could do.

And she did it splendidly too.

She wears glasses now, her eyes couldn't ever be the same after what she had to use them for, after what she had seen. She had conjured it herself, so it wasn't like they didn't tell her that there could be permanent damage. Of course, they hadn't expected her to survive, after all they taught her, after all she learned. So when she showed up with muggle glasses and a type of mouth that couldn't quite move as elegantly as it had before they didn't quite know what to do with her. They tried to hide her away in the deepest catacombs of what was left of the Ministry, but she didn't stay put like they wanted. They didn't realize she didn't care where they wanted her, that she knew why they tried to hide her away.

It didn't take much to turn her into the machine that she had become, and it didn't take much for her to turn herself back. Or bring herself back, more accurately.

No one wanted to tell her what they had to tell everyone else about her so they could win, but Hermione was clever enough to know that it didn't matter. She learns quickly, she knows this, and it doesn't take much for her not to care. She knew that in a few generations her name would be barely a footnote and the people that mattered so badly in her own lifetime would be little but ineffectual legends when she would truly grow into what they molded her to be.

They told her to learn so many things, and she did and no one really talked to her the same way again.

So she sits behind her counter and keeps her mouth closed and lets her glasses rest across the bridge of her nose. A woman and her young child come into her store and she smiles benignly.

This is her life and this is what they chose her for. They asked her to do her job and she listened because she had been Hermione Granger and she had always listened to what people told her. And when she did what they wanted they told her to go on, and when she did it again they asked her to stop and she stopped because she knew the rules of engagement and she always followed the rules. And then they asked her to please do it again. And she did. And then they asked again, and again, and again, until no one wanted to speak to her ever again.

Harry and Ron promised they wouldn't change after the war. They had all promised together, hands clasped tight over a fire they conjured in the darkest part of the Forbidden Forest. Under the decimated web of an empty nest of spiders, they made the deepest, darkest pact they could imagine, and sealed it with tiny spots of blood. Ron had blanched when Hermione went to prick his finger, but Harry cajoled him into it and then they made the promise. Sixteen and stupid they promised to be friends forever, they promised to never leave a friend behind, they promised with most somber faces they could muster that they would win the war together no matter what it would take.

Sealing their fists together they watched their droplets of blood evaporate in the fire. Ron said the smoke smelled like copper, and she remembered that she had just held her breath the whole time they clenched their fists so she never noticed. They had hurried back to the dorms for some of the butter beer that Ginny had smuggled in the month before. Warm and placid by the fire it didn't take long for them to split off and then head to bed where Harry felt his scar burn and where Hermione lost her virginity and where Ron told her he loved over and over and over and over again until he fell asleep against her shoulder while Hermione couldn't stop herself from wondering what the war would bring.

They had made promises to each other and for all that she knew, they all had kept them.

And then Hermione went and won the war without them.

She doesn't think they ever forgave her for that.

They asked her to do the only thing that she could do because she was the only one left that still had all her faculties working in perfect condition. And then they asked her to do what they had trained her to do and she did it without telling anyone even though she promised with the deepest, darkest magicks that they had tempted in that deepest darkest forest where they once had grown up.

Harry doesn't talk to her anymore and Ron pretends he doesn't remember his first time and Ginny sometimes sends her letters though always denies it when Hermione writes back.

She isn't lonely, she promises herself, she doesn't have the time for that, not when there's so much left to do.

The war is over and everyone has gone back to their real lives except for Hermione Granger. This is her life now, even though no one expected (wanted) her to survive.

She smiles at the little child who waves his stubby fingers at her. She smiles and the scar that bisects her lips bends and crinkles and the boy laughs at how odd and funny her mouth looks. He tugs at his mother's hand and Hermione doesn't mind when the woman can barely meet her eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N**: [](http://katemonkey.livejournal.com/profile)[**katemonkey**](http://katemonkey.livejournal.com/) started a fantastic little series where Hermione runs a book store (hint, you should probably read that instead). But I liked the idea so much, I hope she doesn't mind if I sort of cribbed a little of the concept. Just a little though, I promise.


End file.
